


Short Stories: Dahlia Cannock

by hezenvengeance



Category: Vampire: The Masquerade, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines (Video Game)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-09 10:25:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17405198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hezenvengeance/pseuds/hezenvengeance
Summary: Dahlia 'Maisie' Cannock is a newly turned Malkavian in LA. This is a collection of drabbles dedicated to the happenings in her life. These are not posted chronologically.





	1. 8:43AM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dahlia struggles with her transformation. Her voices remain unhelpful.

It’s 8:43AM and Dahlia has learned three things.  
  
One: Becoming a vampire does not automatically equate a sudden shift in attitude. Sleeping still feels like wasting time.  
  
Two: There’s only so much dissociating in the shower that even she can do, and running the water bill up without a steady income is probably a bad idea.  
  
Three: Judge Judy is overhyped.  
  
8:43AM, and there’s nothing to do but sit and watch daytime TV until the cotton ball feeling in her head finally smothers her thoughts enough to allow for sleep.  
  
She’s exhausted, that much is true. Her joints scream in protest and every inch of her feels weighted with lead as she drags herself back to laptop stuffed in the corner for the fifth time that hour. No, it’s her _mind_ that races, thoughts running a mile a minute and she just can’t keep up. It’s been just a week since Caleb revealed his little secret. A week since the theatre, since the crowd and the show and that stuck up twat Lacroix and she still hasn’t quite adjusted to the constant flow of information both helpful and entirely the opposite milling about her head, alongside the growing list of obligations and enemies and all these things she suddenly must consider and mind and Christ all-fucking-mighty, Lacroix was gonna have to act fast if he wanted the job of doing her in because stress was about to get there first.  
  
The click of keys under her fingers carries over the senseless drone of the TV, and as Dahlia hits refresh on her emails and catches the sight of her nails her expression rankles; the polish is chipped and flaking, and her once perfectly manicured talons are split and cracked from various tussles and less than dainty activity.  
  
Her appearance had always been carefully cultivated; expensive makeup, outlandishly revealing yet fashionable outfits, perfect nails and eyebrows and of course, her mountain of lush hair. The illusion was quick to lift after her Embrace; 24-hour salons are hard to come by. 24-hour anything other than convenience stores is hard to come by, at least here. How did vampires navigate this sort of thing anyway? Or was she doomed to the mediocrity of one single outfit for the rest of her unlife? The prospect was a grim one. So much of her personality relied on her appearance. She needed to appear collected, capable, fun and flirty and just a bit dangerous. What was she outside of this shell? Banal. Mediocre. Utterly uninteresting.  
  
She gathers her knees to her chest. The TV and the slight glow of the laptop screen are the only illumination in the room; the blackout curtains are secure, the only thing that seems so in this hole of an apartment. The lights stay off so she doesn’t have to see, doesn’t acknowledge the mess her life has become. Fucking Caleb.  
  
Caleb was a somebody. In money from his family, decently attractive in a ‘I’ve just stepped out of the photo for some Silicon Valley startup ad’ kind of way. Not her type. The bleached blonde hair didn’t do him any favours. But money hungry doesn’t have a type, and she was sick of shitty internships and waitressing to fuel her lifestyle. He promised her the world, or at least enough of a stake in it to be able to pursue her passions without worrying about cash. All she had to do was hang off his arm and look pretty. That would of been enough for her. It was not enough for Caleb.  
  
Her hand snakes up to the side of her neck, palm pressed flat on the left side. There’s a few sensations she’ll never forget for the rest of her unlife, and Caleb’s fangs sinking into her skin and drawing the life out of her would remain imprinted in her consciousness forever. It was already a regular staple of her nightmares. Grabbing hands. Hushed whispers. The scream he’d silenced with a hand over her mouth. It’s funny; she always thought she would of struggled.  
  
The voices started as soon as she woke in the theater, high and flitting above the congregation, barely there whispers at the edge of her hearing. She’d thought it was the crowd, freshly turned, barely conscious, unaware of what exact strain of taint Caleb had forced into her.  
  
They hadn’t stopped. Ever. Even in dreams she was bombarded with sound and information, bellows and shrieks and whispers and sighs, coherent and not, there and not, in languages she didn’t understand and languages she’d never knew existed. If they existed. Could be gibberish. Sounded like gibberish. And picking a voice was like a lottery; nines times out of ten it was useless.  
  
There’s something screaming in the space behind her ear, now; a howling dirge that tries to mimic words, tries to make itself real and present and important, desperate to be heard. Dahlia presses her hands to her ears and squeezes her eyes shut, hunched over the desk and whimpering. Loud, piercing, like nails on a chalkboard and the screech of tires. Her thin frame quakes, and she considers screaming back. It hurts. It’s not the first time. It won’t be the last, she knows, another voice at the back of her head, taunting whisper. ‘This is forever, Childe’. It talks in Caleb’s voice. Her head falls against the desk, and before rational thinking can catch up it hits again, pain exploding above her eyebrows but it drowns both voices as she cries out, third time for good measure, fourth time for something she doesn’t want to remember. Her reflection catches in the black laptop screen: tired eyes, streaked makeup, face split with blood like a cracked mirror. Shattered. She’ll never be whole again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's safe to assume there's at least four conversations going on in Dahlia's head at all times.


	2. 2:26AM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dahlia avoids confronting her heart. Nines tries to broach the subject.

2:26AM, and downtown is alive.

 

The buzz of conversation is steady whichever way Dahlia turns, belied by her own personal chorus chasing the tails of other’s words. The click of her heels on the pavement is almost drowned by the steady swell of noise, and she misses the time when a clear head meant just that. True quiet is a far-fetched dream she’s been having too often lately. It makes conversations even more difficult, and she’s grateful to all the people who don’t yell at her when she has to ask for a repeat.

 

Beckett. Jack. Skelter. Mercurio (after a half-yelled explanation). Nines.

 

Her feet have taken her toward the anarch’s haunt on autopilot. Her brow dents at the realization, and she turns decidedly and flounces off in the direction of Confession. The voices meld well with the music there. Maybe there’ll even be some drugged-up kine she can steal a high off.

 

A hazy mind is better than nothing.

 

* * *

 

Her phone buzzes as she steps through the gate; Lacroix, hounding her again. Dahlia rolls her eyes. He must have enough surveillance around the city to know she’s avoiding him, and more than enough to see her slinking off to the Last Round at closer and closer intervals. Can't take a hint, clearly.

 

She doesn't even have time to shove the mobile back into her pocket before it buzzes again, and she briefly considers throwing it into the nearest bin. Instead, she hesitantly flips it open, an odd feeling beginning to curl in her stomach.

 

Nines?

 

The sender says ‘7810’, a half assed cover name for the stoic anarch leader. Dahlia wouldn’t put it past Lacroix to bug her phone, and the other anarchs have similar aliases. Still, it’s rare to get any sort of word from him that’s not in person. Rarer still for him to text.

 

They haven’t spoken since she slaughtered the plaguebearer, when the beast overtook her and Nines neglected to make good on his threat. Since she woke up in an unfamiliar room and unfamiliar clothes above the Last Round, three blood bags on the bedside table.

 

Since she spilled her guts to the pillows and sheets and discovered the reason they smelt so familiar when she tried to leave and found pale blue eyes outside the door.

 

She clicks the message open, and the odd feeling shifts straight into dread.

 

‘You around tonight? Got some things to say, ASAP.’

 

That’s ominous.

 

The low bass coming from Confession is close enough to vibrate through her feet. It would be so easy to simply ignore the text, walk inside and lose herself for the night in music and misery. She clicks the phone shut with an air of finality, and takes one step toward the club.

 

A ventrue she recognises from Lacroix’s opulent office steps out of the church doors. Dahlia’s body seizes mid-step as his gaze begins to sweep the courtyard.

 

_ Well, that decides that, _ she thinks, as she turns on her heel and unceremoniously sprints out the gate.

 

* * *

 

She skinned her knees. Careening through the back alleys of Downtown, away from Lacroix’s eyes, a bottle stuck in the gap of her sole and heel had sent her sprawling. Her mood was already in poor condition, and now her mind is inundated with rising chatter, feeding off the anxiety the text and now the cracks in her flawless appearance have caused. She lifts her head. Once again, Dahlia stands in view of the Last Round.

 

Lost in anxious thought, Damsel’s yelled greeting is lost beneath the reedy wails that needle her mind as she lets the door fall shut behind her. Dahlia’s whole body aches with foreboding, the chorus rousing itself into a frenzy with her dismal mood to work off of. More shouted acknowledgements are thrown her way as she makes her way to the staircase but they too are lost beneath the swell.

 

She pauses halfway up the stairs, squeezing her eyes shut, trying desperately to clear her mind enough to completely listen for once. It doesn’t work, the cacophony renewing its efforts if anything. She takes another step, pauses again, short breath to steel herself, another,  _ breath, Dahlia _ .

 

This is where it ends.

 

One step, two step, the boards groan under her boots as she meets the second storey and there’s a brief wonder whether the floor will comply with her wishes and swallow her whole. Compared to the raucous unlife filling the bar, upstairs is practically empty. Suspiciously so. In fact, the only body stands by the far window, burned at the edges in street lamp yellow.  The silhouette is painfully familiar.

 

She crosses the floor and each thump of her heels on the stained carpet signs another damning toll, one after the other till she’s close enough to see that piercing blue drinking in the scenes outside. There’s a voice shrieking about mismatched faces and crooked mirrors from the base of her back, another a venomous hiss under her left ear, the voice that sounds so much like Caleb’s, picking apart her attraction to Nines and all the reasons it’s baseless and unrealistic and plain  _ wrong _ . Her heart sinks. For once, Dahlia doesn’t have it in her to fight it.

 

She stops short of him, five steps separating them but it feels like miles, loaded with wire-taut tension. Dahlia curls and uncurls her fists, waiting for him to move, to speak, to do  _ something _ , seconds ticking by like hours. Nines turns, shadows overtaking his face.

 

Her voices fill the silence the two of them leave, shrill, deafening and ceaseless, and oh, it’s so loud, unbearably so, a scream lodged in her throat and eyes squeezed shut and nails digging into her palms, pinpricks of pain flaring through the noise. Her body bends forward, the sound like a weight, crushing her down, breaths coming too hard, can’t ground herself, can’t think,  _ can’tcan’tcan’t- _

 

There’s pressure on her arms suddenly, an iron grip that lifts her up and forward and Nines fills her vision. He’s saying something, but the screams in her brain drown it, and she shakes her head furiously, agonised, latching on to his upper arms. He sweeps something from her face, controlled strength, like she’s made of sugar glass.  

 

The fragile neutrality of her face shatters, shoulder sagging. She makes a pathetic noise in her throat and crumples, staggering the last step between them into his arms as the pretense comes crashing down and she cries, breathless wheezy sobs as her body struggles for air it doesn’t need, face pressed into the crook of his neck.

 

It’s a wordless thing. Dahlia works the shame and the hatred out of her body, staining Nines’ shirt with tears. She can barely tamp her overloaded senses down enough to notice him change grip, gathering her into his chest and the sensation simply makes her cry harder.

 

* * *

 

Dahlia comes down, slowly. His arms are flush against her back, body a solid weight against her as she finds her breath and her words. He presses circles into her spine, a soothing gesture which would seem so strange coming from the usually stoic brujah in front of her, had she the presence of mind to think about it.

 

She rubs her bleary eyes over his shoulder. Somewhere her brain is bemoaning her undoubtedly smudged eyeliner, but she can’t seem to hold on to the annoyance. She feels light, the strange floating limbo that comes after a momentary emotional breakdown. Her fingers dig into the back of Nines’ shirt as if to ground her, dazed eyes reserved for the neon signs outside the window. The chorus has reduced right down to a murmur, unintelligible, and otherwise the silence between them no longer feels quite so loaded, but there’s still some feeling of words left unsaid.

 

“I’m sorry,” Dahlia says quietly, hoarse, barely a whisper muffled in his shoulder. If anything his hands press her tighter to him, and she feels more than hears his quiet reassurance, soft vibration, chest to chest.  

 

“Why didn’t you kill me?”

 

The question rings out in the empty space, loaded like the gun that glints at Nines’ hip. She knows he could. Put the barrel to her head and blow her brains out all over the peeling wallpaper. No hesitation. No regret.

 

But his hands stay round her middle as he mulls over his answer. She wants to see his face, but that would mean moving, and she knows that whatever this right here is, it’s fragile. One misstep will make them both withdraw. And as much as she wants to curl up in this moment and live in it forever, it has to end. So she’ll draw it out. Because Nines’ arms are safety and his broad back is shelter and she’s never wanted so desperately to be held fast, to feel every pinpoint of contact, fingertips against her skin.

 

Nines is talking, or so she assumes from the low thrum she feels under her cheek. And in classic Dahlia fashion, she missed it all. 

 

“Say again?” She mumbles. Nines huffs, but she can practically hear the smile in it. The squeeze he gives her body is rather telling, too.

 

“I was saying that you asked me a hard question. Getting it this time?”

 

Dahlia nods slowly, sleepily, clinging more than holding now. Nines nods back, and continues.

 

“I don’t know why I didn’t kill you then. I don’t think I could of. I can’t now. But at least now I-” He stops, swears under his breath, and makes what she thinks is a rude gesture towards the stairwell but doesn’t let go.

 

She waits a beat before piping up. “Do the others know?”

 

“...No. Though something tells me you already figured that out.”

 

She snorts. “Damsel didn’t rip my arms off when I came through the door, so I assumed you’d kept quiet. Again, why?”

 

Nines is quiet again, carefully considering his response. Another beat passes and suddenly he shifts against her, withdrawing till he has her by the upper arms again; there’s just enough space for Dahlia to crane her head back and look at his face, hands resting against his biceps. He won’t meet her eyes. 

 

“I’ve been alive for how many god-damn years and I still- Shit.” Another disgruntled noise. His stop-starts are making her nervous. Once again the voices begin to eat at the edges of her thoughts, the pleasant hazy sensation receding as the seconds tick by. 

 

“Nines?”

 

Those icy blues finally zero in on her. He’s studying, assessing, and god she must look a picture for how long he stares as if stuck on something.  Under the scrutiny, her face cracks into a small, nervous smile. 

 

Something switches in Nines’ demeanor. He bends slowly, as if he expects her to pull away, and almost looks shocked when Dahlia’s forehead bumps his. He’s too close to look at anymore, and she closes her eyes. Their noses brush. It’s almost too much to handle, and Dahlia can feel herself shaking, anticipation now instead of anxiety. She  _ wants _ . Good god, the waiting is torturous as Nines hovers, and she’s half tempted to close the distance herself. 

 

“Y’okay?”

 

It’s almost too quiet to hear, low in his throat and more husk than word, and her ‘yes’ is just as breathless. 

 

And then his lips meet hers and her mind empties, a euphoric absent of thought aside from the sensation Nines presents. He still handles her as if she’ll break at the slightest application of force, slow and soft and not at all what she expected. 

 

They break apart on reflex, barely an inch between them still and Dahlia makes a soft noise in her throat. The air between them shifts and when Nines kisses her again it comes with an edge of hunger, force that sends a pleasant thrill through her, a hand cradling her face and the other curling back around her waist. 

 

When they come apart again Nines puts more distance between them, and keeps her still when she tries to chase him. His face has returned to neutral, but the thumb he sweeps over her cheek is painfully gentle. 

 

“We need to have a real talk about this. You know that, right?”

 

Dahlia grins, coquettish. “Or we could  _ not _ , and you could kiss me again?”

 

His face splits into a smile, if a little disgruntled. 

“I mean it, we need to-”

 

There’s the sound of boots thumping up the stairwell and Dahlia looks over her shoulder just in time to catch Damsel appearing, expression utterly thunderous. 

 

“We got a problem.”

 

Nines’ arms fall away, and he sets his shoulder as he moves around her, towards the anarch den mother. Dahlia brings her own about her, already missing the pressure. 

 

“What kind of problem?”

 

Damsel’s lip pulls up into a snarl. “Some leftover nutjobs from the plague mess got loose, injured some of our boys before we could put ‘em down.”

 

Dahlia can hear the hard line of rage in his voice. “I’ll be down in a minute. Don’t stir them up anymore than they already are.”

 

Damsel barks out an affirmative and gives Dahlia a cursory nod before disappearing back to the ground floor, and it finally comes to the Malkavian’s attention that the noise from downstairs has all but ceased. She wonders if Nines missed it too. 

 

He stands at the top of the stairwell, uncharacteristically hesitant. She lets her arms fall, crosses the floor and in one smooth motion pulls his head down to kiss him, short and soft and plied with an emotion she’s still a bit wary of naming. His hands rest on her shoulders again, and when she pulls away his expression is a little more settled. 

 

“I’ll be an hour, tops, and we still need to talk about,” he gestures loosely to the both of them, “All of this. Think you can hang on?”

 

Dahlia’s eyes flick to her watch, and she cocks her head. “You realise it’s about 3 hours till sun up.”

 

He shrugs. “You could stay.”

 

“If you’re offering.”

 

“I am. You seemed to enjoy it last time.”

 

Her smart retort is stopped short by a crash from downstairs, and they share an exasperated look. Without a word, she drops her hands, and he squeezes her shoulder once more before taking off down the stairs, and his reprimand is just loud enough to stay above the chorus as it creeps back in with the silence. Dahlia breathes out, and pinches herself for good measure. Not a dream. Incredible. There’s a pleasantly tight feeling in her chest and she holds on to it for all she has as she crosses the room and disappears through the door to the apartment. 

 

Nines comes back to Dahlia wearing one of his shirts again, with not much else. 

 

There’s simply no time for talking after that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You'll have more luck getting a dog to speak than getting Dahlia to confront her emotions.


	3. 5:36am

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nines invites Dahlia over. Dahlia comes to an uncomfortable realisation.

5:36am. The sun will rise in a half hour.

 

Dahlia fidgets and fusses with the blinds for lack of something to do; their wandering of Downtown had ran over (again), and Nines had offered up his bed and his company (again), and who was she to refuse some quality time with a hot brujah (again)? 

 

Nines fishes out an old button-up from a chest of broken drawers, prying her hands from the blinds and pressing the wrinkled ball of cotton into her grasp, kissing her forehead with more gentleness than she thought he was capable of, and more than she thinks she deserves. He disappears into the bathroom, and she briefly mourns the fact he won’t see her change. 

 

Everything goes, barring her socks and underwear, sans bra, which she pings at the bathroom door with surprising accuracy. Nines pokes his head out, directing his deadpan expression at Dahlia’s back as she finishes with the buttons - over her breasts, for once - and moves on to her hair. She barely gets her fingers on the hair tie before Nines touches her wrist, depositing himself on the bed and patting the space in front.

 

“C’mere. Let me try for once.”

 

“Your funeral, pal,” she says with a snort and no small amount of derision, but obliges him anyway. The bed frame creaks as her weight joins his in the centre and he sets about the task of dismantling her ponytail. It’s a long, annoying process, but if nothing else Nines is diligent and focused, even if Dahlia smacks his hands away every time he tugs too hard. 

 

They figure it out, eventually, and Dahlia is only slightly worse for wear for the trouble. He pulls her into his lap proper, running his fingers slowly through the shorter layers of her hair, skating her neck in a manner that borders on sensual, and sends a frisson of pleasure through her body at every pass. She tilts her head back - evidently Nines hasn’t noticed the effect he’s having, if his barely awake expression is anything to go by. He yawns; another pang of heat runs through her as his fangs flash in the darkness. 

 

To her disappointment, he then promptly flops back on the bed, eyes closed. So much for that then. 

 

Dahlia’s fingers clench in the sheets. She’s never been in someone’s bed simply to sleep, and doesn’t really know what to do with herself. Thankfully Nines seems to have some inkling that this is the case, pulling her listless body to his own, strong arms and calloused hands, presses his right up between her shoulder blades and curls the left across her lower back, fingers resting at the beginning of her thigh. His body fits against hers snugly, and he lays the barest kiss where his head rests on her collarbone. 

 

Her own hands wander, unsure where to rest. Nines’ back is, frankly, unfairly broad, and she feels the muscle jump under her fingers as her right hand slides slowly to the base of his skull.

Her fingers sift through short shorn hair with a slight pressure and he grunts something in affirmation, squeezing her thigh and pressing her closer. It’s fascinating to watch as the tension bleeds from his body, the anarch leader reduced to little more than a muscle-bound lump, his weight bearing down into the mattress and sinking into her side till she’s half smothered under half asleep brujah.  

 

“So it’s this easy to wear you down, hm?”

 

The only answer Dahlia gets is a soft, muffled hum of contentment. It earns him an eye-roll that he can’t hope to see, pressing lazy kisses to her chest. 

 

Alright then. New tactic. 

 

She presses her nails down, just slightly, and drags them behind his ear. His body shivers against hers, top to toe, and she feels more than hears the strangled moan he tries to smother in her skin. A grin alights on her face. She does it again. 

 

Nines’ weight shifts all at once, a spring come open, descending into the cradle of her hips. She’s vaguely aware of the rough squeeze he gives the inside of her thighs before his own hips roll, laughter peppering her answering moans. 

 

He tears through the buttons without preamble, eager as always to get his hands, his mouth, teeth, tongue on her, Dahlia covering him in kisses and murmured encouragements till arousal takes over coherency as he hooks her leg over his shoulder and sinks into her. 

 

The one modicum of humanity the two of them choose to chase, and it’s this. But fuck, does it ever feel right.

 

He’s got his thumb in her mouth again - she’s being too noisy, it means, we should quiet down, it means, but Dahlia can’t find it in her to care at the moment. Her fang scrapes over the callous on his knuckle, drags the flat of her tongue against the pad, watches his brow crease at the motion, revels in the moan that slides out of his throat. He’s so easy to read in moments like these, when he gives himself over to sensation.

 

It’s terrifying how much he trusts her, to let his guard down like this. It almost scares her. But then it doesn’t, because isn’t she the same way?

 

Nines can’t give her anything. He’s by no means rich, or at least not flash with whatever cash comes his way. Vampire politics sail too far over her head to be useful; she can’t turn what she doesn’t know to her advantage. Nines, by all the judgements she used before, wasn’t worth that second fuck.

 

And yet.

 

There’s something about him - about them, together - that makes the place where she’s sure her heart is all shrivelled up bloom and burn, a flicker-flash of neon, brighter when he’s near. He makes her herself, nervous and flustered and needy and honest, so terribly, embarrassingly honest.  

 

Maybe it’s that honesty that makes her arms stretch out to pull him to her, that honesty that makes her cradle his face so reverently as she kisses him through her climax. The honesty that has her trembling in his arms in the aftermath, his forehead on hers, a dawning realisation plain as day on her face, looking at him like she’s only now, truly, seeing him. 

 

She loves him. 

 

She almost says it. 

 

And yet. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dahlia doesn't want this.


	4. 12:22AM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the end of the world as Dahlia knows it. The werewolf does not care.

12:22AM. Griffith Park is burning.

  
The werewolf snarls against the glass as the gondola pulls away. The air is burning. Her blood is a smear on the glass and a pool on the floor, red like her jacket, torn, tattered, six sharp rends from sharper claws across the back.    
  
It chased her down, pounding steps, acrid breath across the back of her neck, running, running, the doors slam shut as claws catch her hair. She won't miss it, tells herself. If her heart still beat it would be out of her chest, her limbs scream in protest with every move and it hurts, it hurts so much. There wasn't time to think before but now there is, alone in the air and the void of it is dark and deep, bloody hands clench into a fist, holding his three minutes ago.    
  
There's a lump in her throat and she can feel the tears gathering, swallow it down, can't let them see; but there's no camarilla bodies looking down their noses, no Beckett to chide, no Damsel or Skelter to take the piss, no Nines to make worry. No Nines. No Nines.   
  
It starts a sob and ends a scream, chest burning as it contracts and expands around the agony, chokes out grief to the skyline and stars. It's raw like a new wound, and for the life of her she can't recall ever hurting so much. Claw out her heart, thing won't be much good now. Get rid of the brain too, it hurts to think, and the image of a body bloody and broken on concrete and cars won't stop coming back.    
  
She's shaking, still crying, can't be much blood left in her, she'll die alone and ruined in a shitty steel box and no-one will ever know why. Can't even find it in her to wish a final death on Lacroix. Let the prince rule, let him have his coffin, his key, his corpse; just give Nines back. Let him be alive, let Damsel be kicking his ass over it, let the werewolf be dead or gone or both, let him live, let him live, let him live.    
  
Everything feels heavy, slow. She could sleep. Knows she shouldn't. Her eyes won't stay open. The gondola jolts as it stops and she's aware but it's far away and so is her body, like watching fish swim through thick aquarium glass. Someone is shouting, the voice is familiar but the haze of exhaustion has settled and she tired, down to the bone and core.   
  
The gondola jerks under new weight and the motion sings white hot through her, screaming in her head but her throat can't manage the sound, please, please just leave, let her die, let it be over. Then there's something in her mouth, fangs break the surface on autopilot and the tang of blood fills her senses, swallow, unknown hands on her shoulders to move her into sitting and this time she does scream, small around the empty bag. Drained, but it's traded for another and despite herself she bites again, draining the second, the third.    
  
The blood is singing through her system, not enough but enough, faculties returning one by one and oh does she wish they weren't, pulled to her feet, body struggling, straining against pain and fatigue and hopelessness. 'Why did you save me', she wants to ask, but her thoughts are better reserved for making sure she stays on two feet. 'Why couldn't you leave me', she wants to spit, but venom is lost in favour of moving her legs.    
  
The voice is still talking, has been talking the whole time, familiar, steady constant, can't tamp her thoughts down from the pendulum of 'pain' and 'suicidal' long enough to figure it out, can barely see straight through the haze. If anyone touches her after this she's going to break them, mind first. Head first? Brain first? That's logistics. It will be bad. If she doesn't kill herself first.    
  
Vibrations under her, small roar and there's another blood bag in her hand, when did she sit down? Her vision won't straighten but her ears work well enough as the voice says to rest, ways to go to the haven, wake her when they get there, 'you're lucky to be alive'.   
  
Luck is subjective, she wants to say. Luck would of reversed this, she wants to say. "Luck would of saved us both," she does say. The voice has no response. She stuffs the blood bag in her mouth, drains it dry far too fast.    
  
Quiet, but not peace.   
  
Dahlia sleeps.    
  
On the other side of town, Nines wakes up.    


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dahlia will never look at dogs the same again.


	5. 11:32PM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Plaguebearer is dead. Nines is not as dense as Dahlia thought.

11:32pm, and Dahlia has dragged herself to The Last Round, again.

Jezebel Locke is dead. The Plaguebearer is dead. Dahlia is not dead, but the way her injuries sting and throb makes her half wish she was. She steps inside, steels herself against the deafening volume of the music and threads her way through the gathering crowds to Damsel’s little nook to fill the den mother in on her achievement. Damsel’s quick to crush her spirits though; there’s another source still loose apparently, more Kindred and Kine turning up sick and dead even as Dahlia dealt with Locke.

“Ugh, gimme a break,” she whines, visibly deflating. Damsel snorts.

“No can do, Cammie. You’re not gettin’ out that easy.”

Dahlia rolls her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Would you kindly quit calling me that? Think it’s pretty obvious I’m not about to be grovelling at the Prince’s fucking feet, isn’t it?”

“Sheesh, don’t get your panties, or _‘knickers’_ or whatever in a twist, princess,” Damsel retorts flippantly, looking thoroughly unimpressed. Dahlia groans.

“Where’s Nines?”

Damsel’s expression immediately switches; the grin she’s wearing now pisses off and scares Dahlia in equal measure. “Ooh, I bet you’d like to know, huh.” She laughs. Dahlia glares.

“You lookin’ for me, kid?”

The two women turn to the stairwell as Rodriguez thumps down the last few steps. He runs a hand over his head, rubbing the nape of his neck and yawns, and it is entirely unfair how those basic actions make Dahlia forget how to speak, the place where her heart would beat burning. She misses Damsel rolling her eyes by her side and mentioning the Plaguebearer mess whilst Dahlia’s brain reconnects to her mouth. Nines nods, turning back toward the stairwell.

“Yeah, I wanted to hear about it when she got back. C’mon, we’ll talk upstairs, it’ll be a bitch to hear you down here.”

“Uh, sure, that’s fine.”

“Oh yeah, bet somethin’ else is fine too!” Damsel calls, sarcastic sing song. Dahlia makes sure Nines is a good way up the stairs before turning around and making a cutting motion across her throat. Damsel cackles.

“Have fun, Cammie!”

“Fuck off, Damsel!”

 

* * *

 

 

Dahlia has her hands on her temples as she ascends to the second floor, and finds Nines already in one of the booths, and he pats the seat next to him before she can make for the other side.

Well, who is she to refuse this tempting and rather dangerous offer?

God help her.

“You have to stop letting Damsel give you shit, kid," Nines says as Dahlia gingerly sits down. She hopes he doesn't notice.

“I know,” Dahlia whines, a veritable pout on her face, “I’m such a fucking doormat. No wonder she still thinks I’m Cam.”

“She’s kidding. She better be kidding. You’ve fielded more trouble for us in the past month than some Anarchs run into their whole lives. Short lives, but you’ve not been on the beat that long yourself. How long has it been since the theatre?”

“Six months and counting,” Dahlia chirps back. She can still remember; the crowd and the first flitting echoes of her voices, Lacroix and his goons, Nines leaping to her defense. Hazy memories, distorted by exhaustion and hunger, but memories nonetheless.

“Christ, that’s young. Young to be goin’ toe-to-toe with a Plaguebearer, anyway.” Nines leans back into the wall of the booth, one arm up on the grimy tabletop: “Tell me about it.”

Now that’s a distracting image, she thinks. He’s effortlessly attractive. His gaze is fixed on her; she’s got his full, undivided attention for once, and she’s wasting it ogling him. She sucks in a breath, and begins.

His steely gaze seems to bore into the side of her head as she talks; he looks at her like he’s assessing something, cocks his head as she launches into the details of Jezebel Locke and her wretched practice, thrums his fingers on the table to the rhythm of the music downstairs, and she keeps her eyes there instead of meeting his. Hell, but he’s got big hands. They look rough, calloused across the knuckles. Strong. Capable. Dahlia’s tongue catches in her throat as her thoughts drift from her fight to the gutter, and she stammers out a half-arsed explanation of key theft and the concierge with the terrible accent to distract herself.

The story moves along, and her injuries seem to throb as she recalls the fight proper - Dahlia clamps her hands over her forearms in response before she can stop herself. There’s a small change in Nines’ expression; he noticed, she thinks, utterly frustrated, tucking her arms away under the table and trailing off at the end of her tale.

The door opens and closes and fresh conversations, loud and boisterous, float up from downstairs, but she’s barely paying attention, too focused on not meeting Nines’ eyes and the icy tone of Caleb in her ear - _weak little thing, useless, he’ll see it now_ \- too distracted to see Nines run a hand through his beard and sigh, too focused on keeping her eyes on the gross little spot of something stuck to the wall to see him reach over, and the flinch and the sharp inhale are completely involuntary as he encloses her hand in his own, brushing his thumbs over the angry gashes Jezebel had left in her pale hands.

“Some nasty ones there, kid. How long ago did you say this fight was?” Nines asks quietly, tugging her left hand around to follow the line that runs halfway across her palm. God, his hands _are_ big, Dahlia thinks; she could lose her own thin digits in them easily, and it’s only when Nines abruptly stops his movements and eyes her expectantly that she realises she must of been asked a question. His expression cracks into a half-smile at whatever face she’s wearing, and he resumes the sweep of his thumbs over her knuckles.

“Earth to Dahlia - you with me, kid?”

“Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Gets loud in here, you know how it is,” she says dismissively, unable and unwilling to tell him the real cause of her distraction.

“Actually, I’m pretty glad I don’t know how ‘it’ is,” he quips back, and Dahlia snorts out a surprised laugh, pressing her lips together as he asks again.

“It was.. Yesterday? Last night, or the night before, I think.” She runs her own fingers over Nines’ hands - rough, like she’d guessed - scrunching her eyes closed. “Everything’s running together lately. We’ve been chasing this Plaguebearer for so long it almost feels like one big sequential night.”

“She must of done a number on you if it’s been that long and they’re still this bad,” Nines responds, turning her hands over again, a soft grumble leaving him as he peels the hem of her jacket away from a cut disappearing into her sleeve and she hisses, the sting spiking down to her elbows. He lifts a brow at that.

“You got some more under there, tough guy?”

She grimaces. “They’re not as bad.”

“I’ll be the judge of that, I think.” His tone lowers, softens, “Show me.”

Dahlia had changed before coming to the bar. Jezebel had made a fine mess of the outfit she’d ‘borrowed’ from Hannah; skintight leather pants (that she’d had to roll up) and a black lace top. The pants had held up against all but the worst of the sick Kindred’s attacks, but the lace had fallen away at the first sweep, and sheer luck had once again saved Dahlia’s worthless hide from being sliced to ribbons. Her new number - high necked, black and sleeveless - covered most of the damage to her chest and torso and the ring of bruises Jezebel had left trying to crush her windpipe. She figured her jacket would cover the rest; she hadn’t expected Nines to be so observant of her pain, to pay so much attention to her movements, to even care if he saw them regardless.

Dahlia hesitates for a second, unwilling both to reveal the extent of her idiocy and to let go of his hands; the closest approximation to warmth she’s had since her Embrace is currently wrapped around her bony fingers, worrying the juncture between her finger and thumb. It’s more pleasant than it has any right to be. But Nines fixes her with a level stare and she complies with a soft sigh, slowly sliding her hands from his and starting to shed her signature red leather. The sleeves snag on a few half-healed cuts and she winces, stops, starts, stops again, fully prepared to just yank the thing off and pain be damned when Nines slides over in the booth to help her the rest of the way out. He drops the jacket on the table, lifting her arm by the wrist to bring it up between them; the gashes run deepest on her forearms and Nines frowns at the sight. Dahlia grumbles.

“You always say to keep your arms up.”

Nines chuckles wryly, running a thumb along the deepest gouge. “I suppose I did. Though, in my defense-” he moves closer to take her other arm, finding a similar story in her injuries, “-I wasn’t expecting you to throw yourself bare-knuckle at a damn Plaguebearer.”

“I didn’t go in there looking for a bloody fight, trust me,” she grouses, yelping when Nines closes his hands around her shoulders to turn her to him in the booth, following the line of a gash till it disappears beneath her shirt. He meets her eyes and cocks a brow; a silent question.

“Same story. Few cuts, some bruises. She tried to choke me out-” She takes his hand without thinking, presses it to circle her throat and leans in close, closing her other hand into a fist and bumping it lightly against the back of his neck, “-And I took the opening. Was pretty impressed with myself. Though someone turning to dust _on_ you is ugh, gross.”

Nines huffs out a laugh into the space between them, and Dahlia is suddenly aware that it’s not much; she felt him breathe out, his and her arms pressed between their chests. She could kiss him. He’s close enough, watching her, intensity tempered by the barest smile, and it’s a trick of the light that he appears to be getting closer; her fist uncurls, her eyes slide closed-

-And scrunch in pain; she hisses, pain radiating from her shoulder where Nines’ other hand has chosen to rest. He flinches back, retracting both hands and she thinks she hears an expletive rush out under his breath before he snatches her jacket from the table and drapes it over her shoulders with rushed and clumsy care.  


“You should go home, kid. Rest up, and feed, soon. You’ll heal faster.”

Dahlia just stares at him for a minute, internally mourning the loss of what was probably going to of been the best kiss of her life. Nines groans, harrying her out of the booth and toward the back door - She goes without a fight, letting him lead her outside and standing silent as the Anarch leader says his goodbyes and shuts the door in her face. She stares at the dented metal for a minute, feeling bereft of… something. She hears laughter and shouting from the other side of the building; must be full downstairs tonight. Least Nines saved her getting bumped around.

She heaves a sigh, and starts to pick her way down the fire escape, wondering how the hell she was meant to navigate their next conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dahlia will learn to deal with Damsels particular brand of affection one day. Not today, though.


End file.
